Thoughts On The EDL’s South West Regional Meeting

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Last weekend saw the EDL stage a South West Regional meet up at the Portman pub in Boscombe, Bournemouth. Reports have come in that local antifascists, having got wind of the meeting, daubed the host pub with ‘EDL Scum Go Home’.Other groups also made the area as unwelcoming as possible to the south’s most determined EDLers. Local minority communities were also warned to be on their guard for an influx of the knuckle draggers.

In the end the regional meeting consisted of 7 or 8 die hards, looking extremely jumpy. The fact that the meeting was held in the main bar area and not the function room leads locals to believe the Portman was compliant with the EDL (it appears they also opened early to accommodate it).

The only two recognisable fascists were Bournemouth organiser Jacqueline Bath, and Bristol’s Mickey Bayliss (South West co-ordinator) although we know groups were invited from across the south coast by Bayliss via the super secure facebook network. We have to wonder if they actually got to discuss anything at all as a policeman stood next to them the entire time talking into his radio.

Jacqueline Bath – Probably not a real name

The response to the shambles of a meeting came via Jacqueline on facebook, who automatically blamed the UAF and Antifa and told her followers that all anti fascist groups support paedo’s!?! It would be easy for us to say all fascists are paedo’s, but we like to maintain a bit of dignity by only dealing with facts, something the EDL just can’t rely on. The lies continued to flow as she tried to draw fire from the pub, saying the meeting was not held there. Either she got so wasted she didn’t remember where she was, or there are two different pubs called the Portman in Boscombe, erm… and she was at the other one? Pathetic, if they are proud of what they do why can’t they tell the truth?

As the EDL fail to get people out to demo’s, and only get a maximum of 8 to a regional meet up it’s easy to write them off as a dead movement in the south. What we are seeing however is the very racist hardcore of hangers-on organising across towns, who in fact could prove just as dangerous as the large groups of ‘casual racists’ and disaffected working class who supported the EDL in the beginning, before the true fascist face showed through (the days of the Jewish and LGBT Divisions). The EDL used to use the excuse it was attacking extremist Islam but they seem to be dropping that pretence now. Any one who now opposes them is a ‘communist’ or a peado, or both. We have seen a smaller but committed classic fascist group emerge, as they also flirt with politics and other European far right parties to try and branch out. The EDL has declined massively but it is the leftover hardcore that we need to defeat if we are ever to do away with them. Many of the dregs in the EDL are now openly aligning themselves with, or at least sharing information, with the Infidels, English Volunteer Force, CxF, and the National Front, the latter of which seems to have had a resurgence following the decline of the EDL, but whose new members of the more openly fascist groups are still lodged within the Leagues facebook groups and many consider themselves dual members.

For a bit more info on some of Bournemouth EDL’s past exploits check out the following links: